Impact of Canadian Strike at IRCC Disrupting Application Processing Time

In-person appointments may be rescheduled.

• If you’re in Canada
  • Clients with immigration-related appointments in Canada will be contacted to re-schedule or cancel appointments.
• If you’re outside Canada
  • Overseas interviews are proceeding as scheduled, unless advised otherwise by the IRCC office abroad.

Passport services

During the current labour disruption, essential government services that continue to be delivered are the result of an agreement between the employer and the union. Most domestic passport services are currently not available. Delays should be expected in the processing of passport applications during the current labour disruption.

• Domestic Passport services

During the current labour disruption, Service Canada only processes domestic passport applications for emergency and humanitarian situations. Passport services are available only at specialized passport sites.

• Humanitarian/emergency situations are defined as:
  • passport clients at risk of financial hardship
  • passport clients who rely on travel as a source of employment, and their income security will be jeopardized
  • passport clients who must travel for medical reasons, or have had a death or illness in the family
  • passport clients whose situation is deemed urgent on compassionate grounds

Passport applications that do not meet these criteria will not be processed when employees are striking. Delivery times will exceed published service standards.

Passport services for Canadians living outside of Canada

The processing of regular passports to Canadians residing outside of Canada, including in the United States, is deemed an essential service and continues through the current labour disruption, although clients may experience delays.

Visit Find a Service Canada Office for a comprehensive list of Service Canada Centres, passport offices and scheduled outreach sites, including up-to-date hours of operation.

Processing applications

There will be limited capacity during a strike, so delays in processing are expected. This includes delays to applications currently being prioritized.

We will continue to update this page during the labour disruption to tell you how services are impacted.